Heads Up to Sellers on eBay
I was in the eBay discussion forums today and, in a thread highlighting the frustrations of one particular seller, they had posted their email exchange with eBay.
In part, eBay’s answer about feedback included this:
Please understand that we will not remove feedback because it seems unfair, or the member lied.
eBay does not censor feedback or investigate it for accuracy…
So an eBay member can lie in their feedback, and the feedback won’t be removed.
Seems to me that eBay is making their marketplace way too orientated towards attracting buyers of any kind. They don’t just want nice, paying buyers… by removing the chance for sellers to now leave negative Buyer feedback, and even with neutral feedback affecting the percentage calculation shown for the buyer on an auction page — it’s getting much tougher for Sellers with near encouragement of “dodgy” buyers.
Here’s just one example of how an inexperienced eBay Buyer can affect a Seller’s rating:
I have seen some really mystifying feedback such as the example I saw yesterday. This buyer left two neutrals for a seller and said very happy with items purchased in each case.
What it really means for Sellers is this: your communication must go to lengths to both be complete and accurate — both to potential Buyers in your listing and to the actual winning bidder after the sale is made.
You have to do everything possible to ensure there are no “Buyer surprises” in the transaction process… from the description of the quality of the item through to packaging and postage. If you’re getting regular questions, address them in your listings or About Me page (and link to them). Make everything as clear as possible.
This is how your marketplace works and you cannot afford to ignore the buyer-orientated environment. This won’t stop unscrupulous Buyers. But it will do two things: it may stop a Buyer with good intentions from misunderstanding the process, and if your listings clearly address relevant issues (and use other ways to help build trust and likeability), then potential Buyers will have a better feeling about you too.
Over time you’ll find ways to use your listings to highlight the positive “trust” issues that mechanisms like the feedback system no longer deal with.
It’s an undoubtedly frustrating situation — especially when bad buyers go without negative feedback — but there are still ways to minimise the impact it has on your eBay business.
Twitter Tweets On 2008-05-30
- Preparing for a day of client copywriting projects … five small projects to put the finishing touches on. #
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Twitter Tweets On 2008-05-28
- Just returned from the first of Brunswick Industries’ Business Breakfasts … interesting talk by NAB economist: coal is our new black gold. #
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Twitter Tweets On 2008-05-26
- Hmmm, rather happy day … client sells $29,000 business in 2 days via eBay with my style listing after his 10-day listing didn’t work! #
- @jonlyles partly to do with better use of photos & reason why it was for sale; also much better use of listing features for higher exposure. #
- @jonlyles yes, I will be making it a case study! I have the listings saved as pdfs, but that’s all so far. Will find auction IDs tomorrow… #
- @jonlyles yes you can — I’ll let you know when it’s ready. #
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Believability in your copy
After reviewing a couple of lots of copy in recent days — one aspect which I noticed needed beefing up is the price “believability” factor.
For example, in one web-based sales pitch, a suite of 10 products were claimed to be worth over $34,000 (a specific amount was used, which was good to include) and being sold for just $47.
With such a discrepancy between the price offered and the value claimed, questions will immediately pop in to a prospective buyers head. Questions like …
Yeah right! Are you exaggerating? How do you justify $34,000? How do you justify making the cost only $47? Why are you selling it so cheap? Or is $47 actually more than it’s really worth? Is the whole package really worth $34,000? If you’re making this up, what else are you making up?
They’re legitimate questions you must address in your copy to persuade the buyer that your offer is genuine and trustworthy.
In the example above (the figures I’ve used are close to the actual figures in what I was reading) there’s also other benefits granted to the buyer, including Private Label Rights (to re-brand the products as your own), resale rights, the ability to give away the product. This creates more questions to answer to address a buyer’s fear about how many copies of the product will be sold (that will be competing against the buyer)… how quickly will they recoup their $47 investment?
Illustrating how this might happen — describing various ways they can make money (even by giving away your product) — can change the focus for a buyer from skepticism to seeing the income earning opportunities offered by this package.
In this case, no “reason why” justification was offered, nor were these questions addressed. If they were, I would predict the overall results would be better than they are now.
Whether you use a “reassuringly expensive” price or a highly discounted price, you need to use convincing copy about the value of the product or service to add believability.